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It seemed impossible. Paying off over $55,000 in student loan debt $409 a month at a time. But then something happened. My student loans got tossed around from CFS to Chase and then back to ACS, my original loan company.

I realized then that I could either suffer and stress out over the next twenty years, or I could go on a crash financial diet and lose the weight of my ACS student loan off my shoulders once and for all.

I started this crash financial diet a little over three years ago. Here’s what I did:

Closed my credit cards down, except for my AMEX.

Extreme couponing. I got my binder, clipped my coupons, and studied blogs like hip2save.com, southernsavers.com, and wesusecoupons.com I got so good, I was getting tons of stuff for free or making money from buying certain items and I grew my own stockpile.

I stopped buying clothes for almost a year. And I stopped going to malls.

I cancelled our Costco membership.

I worked my ass off. I networked on LinkedIn and made sure my profile was updated regularly. I’m a freelance copywriter, so I took every gig I was offered and worked hard. I put 100% into every job. And agencies kept calling me back. I worked morning, afternoon, and late into the night. Sometimes well past midnight.

I socked away 30% for taxes. And then I saved and saved and saved. Two years ago, I slapped down $27,000 in a single payment to ACS. The instant I did that, the coolest thing happened. The amount towards my principal changed. Before when I sent a $409 payment, $300 would go towards interest. Now $300 for every payment was going towards principal. Every time I made additional money, I sent additional payments. Sometimes, it was just an extra $100. And sometimes, it was an extra $2,000. I basically let go of the money before I had the chance to enjoy it. I knew it was meant to do more than buy the latest purse.

I continued to work like crazy. And just sent my final payment 10 minutes ago!

Doing this crash financial diet was hard. You have no idea how hard it was not to go buy a car or go on a fancy trip or go shopping for purses and new pretty shoes. But the end result is worth all of it. I saved about $60,000 in interest and shaved off 15 years off of my student loans.

So what next? I figured if I could conquer my student loans, why not conquer my house? My goal: pay my house off in less than 10 years. We’ll see.

For many underprivileged students like I once was, student loans are a way to pursue higher education so you can change your life for the better.

But when you graduate with the excess debt, many student–including myself–don’t truly understand money and loans and how repayment works. Further, many students don’t even know how much they owe, what their interest rate is or do enough research on student loan repayment companies. You see, most of us graduated with Federal Student Loans and we’re not entirely sure what we’re supposed to do. Herein lies the problem and it’s a big problem that will impact your life for 10-30+ years depending on the amount.

I graduated in 2001 with a Master’s degree and accumulated $60,000 in student loans. At the time, the feds were charging almost 8% interest and for the first time in history, loan companies were offering dramatically lower interest rates. So I received some direct mail piece, called the number and decided to transfer my student loans to ACS. This single move would cause more stress than anything I have ever experienced in my life.

ACS offered me 5.75% interest and my repayments were going to be $400 for 30 years. It was a hard number to swallow. And stupid me at the time, I sucked at money and didn’t understand that this was way off. (Note: I just called ACS today on 3/16/2010 and asked the customer service rep how much would the payment be for a $60,000 loan with 5.75% for 30 years, she said $166. So why was I being forced to pay $400 is beyond me!)

When the repayments began, I just found a job and wasn’t making much money. So when I called and told them my situation and they said I could do a forbearance for 6 months. So I agreed. 6 months later when I started making my payment, my student loans went from $60,000 to almost $67,000. That’s over $1,000 a month!!

I was mad, but felt like I was trapped. When you consolidate, you can’t transfer your loans and you’re stuck. So for 5+ years, I sucked it up made $400 a month payments. In 5 years, I paid $24,000 and out of that $18,000 went to interest. Yes, $18,000!

Then about 2 years ago, my husband received a postcard from CFS (Collegiate Funding Service) about consolidating and I called and asked if there was any way I could consolidate my loans with his. I figured any way I could escape the clutches of ACS I would take. They said I couldn’t and then informed me of a loophole that Bush opened up. For the first time ever, students could transfer their loans to another loan company. I couldn’t believe it. Then I called Sallie Mae and they too confirmed it. So I hustled like it was no one’s business and in less than a week sent my loans to CFS. They offered me a benefit rate of 4.5% for making direct deposit payments and 2 years of on-time payments). Thank god, I hustled because less than 2 weeks later, the loophole closed.

Now get this. When I spoke with CFS, I explained that in 5+ years and $400 payments, I owed $60,000. Funny, how that was the original loan amount I graduated from school with. She crunched some numbers and told me if I continued to pay $400 a month, my loans would be paid off in 19 years–not 30 years! And I saved over $70,000 in interest. You have no idea how much I cried.

2 years later, CFS was sold to Chase and my loans have gone from $60,000 to $50,800. (I sent in a little extra some months) How in the hell do you explain that? In 2 years, I shaved off almost $10,000 and when I had ACS for 5 years, I barely shaved off $7,000. WTH!

So you can imagine my surprise when 2 weeks ago, I received a letter from Chase saying my loan has been sold to you won’t believe it, but ACS. Can you believe it? So of course I am worried and scared that something bad is about to happen.

I spent almost an hour on the phone with Chase yesterday begging for some kind of documentation of my benefits rate so I have something in case ACS tries to take advantage of me. They are sending me a document in a week.

I just called ACS today and she (Nicole) said when my Chase student loans are transferred, they will honor the 4.5% interest rate and my payment schedule and amount shouldn’t change. But only time will tell.

No one can protect yourself from loan companies like ACS so your best course of action is to just avoid them entirely and know everything you can about your student loans so you never get taken advantage of like the way I did.